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8.15.2014

A white cop, a black kid, and a crime.

My husband was a cop for 10 years.

I'm not making that up. Before we
became missionaries, he worked for the Sac Country Sheriff's
department for a decade; patrolled in a bad part of town, wore a
badge over his heart, carried a gun, upheld an oath to Protect and
Serve. His brothers on the force were black and white and asian and
latino.

I'm telling you this because I want you
to know that I totally understand the desire to defend
the officer who shot Michael Brown. I want to defend him.

I want to raise my hand, poke out my
chin, and pompously explain that even if that cop was in the wrong,
there's a meaningful difference between murder and manslaughter.

Yes. He had a pornstache.

I want to tell you about the quiver of
fear in a cop's voice when he gets home from swing shift at 2am,
hangs his duty belt over the closet door, climbs into bed with his
wife and whispers, words coming out in a shudder, “I almost shot
someone tonight... I thought I was going to have toshoot
him...”

I want the public to understand that
when an officer involved shooting occurs, it's not celebrated back at
the office. The department weeps. They cry for the dead and they hurt
for their partner... because, contrary to popular belief, most cops
aren't anxious for a chance to fire their weapons. Most cops
became cops to save lives, not take
them.

I want to demand the details of the
case before we call for the head of a cop who showed up to fight a
crime and shot a man in the line of duty.

Oh. How I wish it were all that simple.

But it's not.It's not simple. It's not cut
and dry.

It wouldn't be fair or right or good to try to explain or excuse the
death of an 18 year old, the anger of a community, or the agony of
his mother. Surely, they deserve better than that... And, certainly, this story
is bigger than that. This is so much bigger than a white cop, a black kid,
and petty crime that ended in death.

I've watched this story unfold many times over now. I've followed
stories like Michael Brown's before, too many stories of unarmed black men shot dead, and the ensuing cry from the black community for
justice. Every detail goes on trial in the court of Internet Opinion,
which leads to no shortage of hateful, blind, ignorance spouted off
in comments on news feeds and blog posts and editorials. It makes my
stomach feel hollow and my heart feel shrunken. It makes my brain
ache. But my pits get super sweaty when I see people who are anxious to
defend the police (like me? Lord, help me.) try to blow off empirical evidence and hard statistics which show black
men are at much greater risk of being shot by police, by using...
well... empirical evidence and hard statistics to explain it
away.

“They are at greater risk of being shot because they're
statistically more likely to be carrying a gun. Duh.”, they shrug.

You'd get a similar response if you were to point out that black men are
more likely to end up in prison;“That's because it's been
proven that black men commit more crime than white men.”

Or unemployed;“Black people have a higher rate of dependance on welfare.”.

Or dead at the hands of a member of their own community;
“Gang violence is factually higher among blacks.”

And the terrible truth is, they're
kind of right.

In the U.S, our black neighbors are
statistically more likely to end up economically challenged, planted
in jail, or shot dead.

So at what point should we bother to
stop and askwhy?

Why??

Why are our black children more likely
to end up dead in the street than our white children?

WHY???

I'm gonna go out on a limb here, take a
stab in the dark, venture a wild guess.... but I think itcould be because RACISM
IS A REAL THINGand IT STILL EXISTS in our cities, schools, and communities.

If you're not sure, pick any big city in America and ask
the first person you find on the street where you can find a “white
high school” and a “black high school”. I guarantee you won't
need to explain the question, and you'll promptly be pointed in two
different directions. You know why? Because segregation is still alive and well all over America. Our suburbs are homogenously white. Our city centers are homogenously
brown. Don't tell me that racism doesn't exist today!

You can't have it both ways.
You can't lean on
statistics that claim black men are more likely to be under-educated,
under-paid, or engaged in criminal activity (in order to prove they
probably deserved to be shot), and, then, not conclude that
our black baby boys are being born into some
kind of serious systemic disadvantage.

Black children are born at higher risk of poverty and prison, because they are born black.
That, my friends, is racism.
That is a crime against humanity.

To be honest, while I believe there's
no doubt the Ferguson Police department handled the aftermath of this
travesty poorly, I'm not ready to condemn the individual cop who shot
Micheal Brown. I can't. A cop's spouse knows too much about what
happens behind the scenes when a 911 call is dispatched or a criminal suspect is encountered, and a man or
woman in uniform races into action for the greater good of the
people. Indeed, I actually hope a thorough investigation ends with
the justification of the discharge of the cop's weapon in the course
of his duty to protect and serve. If not, then we must sadly acknowledge
the crime of manslaughter has been committed by a police officer and
he must be held liable for his actions. I'm going to let the
pieces of that puzzle fall into place without tossing my biased opinion into the
ring.

But another crime has happened here,
one that cannot be left unspoken.

For, no matter the exact details of
this particular shooting outside of a convenience store in Ferguson,
Missouri, Micheal Brown's death can never be justified. This
is why our brothers and sisters are decrying the demise of yet
another
black man at the hands of the police. This
is why people across the nation are gathering to mourn and pray and
protest over another life lost.

Micheal
Brown was born black.

He
was born black in a country that's trying really hard to pretend that
racism is in the past. He was born black in a nation that has, thus
far, failed to bring true equality to her people. He was born black
in a place where being born black is, in a lot of ways, still akin to being born less
than white.

Where is the justice
in that?!

How
can we justify the death of a young man whose whole life unfolded
under a pretty undeniable shadow of racial bias? Is it just
to debate Michael Brown's death without also discussing his
disadvantage?

As
people of privilege (*ahem* you know who you are), we have a
responsibility to ask WHY, and then listen intently to the answer. Our neighbors in Ferguson have been standing
in the street with their hands in the air, because they're trying to
tell us something about the balance of power and racial inequity in the U.S! Are we
willing to hear them?

Because maybe it's time to shut up and listen.

Or maybe it's time to get up and act; to meet our friends in the street, clasp their hands, share in their tears, echo their outrage, and stand by their side until, statistically, a long and healthy future is equally as likely for every child.

Or maybe you're a white, upper-middle class, Christian and you're still not
sure where you stand on this whole issue. If that's the case, please let me leave you with this...